What Is It I Really Want?
by FiveRoses
Summary: Based on what Jane said to Lisbon in 'Rose-Coloured Glasses', when he summed up her personality so neatly.
1. What Is It I Really Want?

_Spoiler Alert__: This is based on the conversation that Lisbon and Jane had in 'Rose-Coloured Glasses':-_

Lisbon: I'm a far cry from what I was in High School.

Jane: Nah, I wouldn't be so sure. Driven to succeed to the point of developing an ulcer; no tolerance for superiors less sharp than yourself; shutting out girls that wanted to hang out with you; blowing off boys that want to get close; all the while, at every turn, wondering, 'What is it I really want?'.

_How lovely was that episode!?! Did you notice that he switched to the present tense when he mentioned boys wanting to get close? Slip of the tongue?_

_I was rather captivated by the idea of Lisbon constantly wondering what it is she really wants, and intended to explore that, but the story has already veered somewhat off course. I will circle back around to it, though._

_Disclaimer__: I don't own any of this, of course, so I hope nobody minds that I'm borrowing their stuff._

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'_What is it I really want?'_ Lisbon thought to herself, adding defensively, 'Everybody_ wonders that!'_ She glared in the general direction of Jane's couch, which (fortunately for both of them) she couldn't see from her office. '_Stupid fake-psychic trick – making some observation that you know applies to pretty much every person on the planet in order to trick your victim into thinking you're reading them. Why the hell do I let him get to me?'_

She tried to concentrate on her paperwork, but instead wondered, '_Am I driven to succeed to the point of developing an ulcer?'_ She briefly considered the state of her digestive system and concluded that her stomach was in perfect working order. '_I just like to do things well – there's nothing wrong with that!'_ She grimaced slightly. '_Why am I justifying myself?'_ She was now officially annoyed at both herself and Jane.

Mr Irritating himself chose that moment to wander into her office. She narrowed her eyes at him. Jane raised his eyebrows slightly in response.

"Been annoying you _in absentia_, have I? What unspeakable crime against bureaucracy have I committed this time?"

So many options, so little time. In the interests of proving him wrong, however, she decided to take the truthful approach.

"Do you really think that I push everyone away?" she asked.

Jane stood motionless for a moment, then he sat down opposite her.

"Is this about what I said the other day at that high school reunion?" he said, connecting the dots with his usual speed.

"Loosely translated, that I'm single-minded, impatient and hold everyone at arm's length? Yes."

"Well, that's a very loose translation. A better one would be that you're focused and ambitious, you don't suffer fools gladly, and you don't make much time for your personal life."

"Same difference, Jane."

"But it sounds so much better my way. And why does it bother you anyway? It's not like this is surprising news to you."

"You made it sound as if I make a conscious and calculated decision to shut people out. It's not like that."

"Aren't you the one who made the rule that we don't discuss our personal lives at work? Because it's unprofessional, I believe?"

"It is unprofessional!"

"Why? It's not like there are neat labels on everything indicating whether they belong in the professional or personal box. Who you are at work affects who you are at home and vice versa. And at what point does a friendship with a colleague begin to also constitute a personal friendship? Why try to rigidly separate different sections of your life? You can't tell me you believe that that's a healthy way to live."

Lisbon hadn't expected Jane to go on the attack with quite so much enthusiasm.

"I had no idea you were so desperate to discuss your personal life at work," she said with asperity.

Jane leaned back in his chair. He gave her one of his 'nice try' looks.

"We're not talking about me, are we? We're talking about whether you put up barriers to keep people out of your life. I was merely pointing out the first example that came to mind."

Lisbon looked down at her desk, trying to marshal her thoughts. As usual, however, she was interrupted. Cho popped his head through her open door.

"Boss, we have that address. Do you want Rigsby and me to go check it out?"

"Yeah, and take Jane with you, will you?"

Jane gave her a slightly miffed look. He didn't like it when Lisbon tried to get rid of him like that. She ignored him, and returned to her paperwork, using her famous self-discipline to force herself to concentrate on the task at hand. Jane followed Cho out of the room, an ominously thoughtful expression on his face.

* * *

A couple of hours later Lisbon heard Rigsby and Cho returning, and she went into the bullpen to get an update. Jane was conspicuous by his absence.

"Where's Jane?"

Cho and Rigsby glanced uneasily at each other. Neither wanted to be the one to tell her that Jane hadn't gone with them as she'd told him to, but had disappeared on some errand of his own as soon as he'd left her office.

"Here I am," Jane said, coming up behind her.

Cho and Rigsby both gave a little sigh of relief, glad that they'd kept their mouths shut. What Lisbon didn't know, hopefully wouldn't hurt either of them.

"You didn't go with them, did you?"

Hmm, so much for that. At least she was aiming all her annoyance at the culprit and not at (in this instance, at any rate) completely innocent bystanders. If Lisbon couldn't control Jane, what hope did either of them have?

Jane just gave Lisbon one of his non-committal smiles and said, "Where's Van Pelt?"

"Where have you been for the last two hours?" Lisbon asked him suspiciously. "I'm really considering investing in a leash for you. One of those ones with a collar that has an electric current running through it, so that I can zap you whenever you misbehave. Of course, that would put a lot of pressure on California's power grid..."

Cho hid a smile at the picture this conjured up; Rigsby, however, completely failed in his attempt to smother a laugh. Jane felt this would be a good moment to unleash his most charming grin on Lisbon, which he knew she could never quite resist (though she tried). Right on cue, her mouth twitched in response.

Van Pelt bustled in just then and immediately saw that she was missing out on something. She looked hopefully at Rigsby, but he just made a little face at her to tell her that he'd tell her later.

"Ah, Van Pelt!" Jane exclaimed, as though he hadn't seen her in months. "Good, I have an announcement."

Lisbon braced herself instinctively. '_If I ever get an ulcer,' _she thought to herself, _'I'll know exactly who to blame!'_

"Since none of us has plans this weekend," (none of the others even bothered to feel surprised at Jane's apparent clairvoyance), "I've rented a lovely house by the sea. It's just a couple of hours drive from here and is right on the beach. We'll leave Friday afternoon and come back Sunday. I'll organise the food and entertainment; you guys won't need to do a thing. We'll let Lisbon drive because she has the most suitable car, but once we get there, we're not colleagues or boss and subordinates; we're just friends, relaxing together. This is a vacation. Bring sun-cream."

He beamed at everyone. Van Pelt beamed back. She rarely had a chance to spend time at the beach, and would never turn down any opportunity to do so. Rigsby liked the sea too, and relished the thought of Van Pelt in a bikini. The trip definitely had his vote. Cho was doing a mental calculation of how many books he'd need to pack – it would never do to run out of decent reading material while on holiday. He decided to go to the library later, just to be safe.

Lisbon glared at Jane. He gave her a very mischievous smile. His expression clearly said, 'Jane, one, Lisbon, zero.' There was a pause as everyone waited for Lisbon to answer. Regardless of what Jane had said, Lisbon was their leader and they intended to follow her lead on this, especially since, if his expression was anything to go by, this was all some game Jane was playing with Lisbon.

"What kind of entertainment?" Lisbon asked, which wasn't really what Jane had expected her to say.

"I'm open to suggestions," he said easily, not wanting to do anything to derail what appeared to be Lisbon's assent to the plan.

Lisbon looked at him thoughtfully for a few moments, then said, "Okay, Jane. Sounds nice." She turned back to Rigsby and Cho, and said, "So, what did you guys find out?"

Following her example, her team switched seamlessly back to work mode. Jane went to his couch and started to make lists of things he needed to get for the trip.

Phase one of Operation Breach Lisbon's Barriers was underway. It was something he'd been itching to do virtually since he met her, and since she'd finally given him an opening, he had, with his usual presence of mind, shoved his foot in the door and was going to make the most of the opportunity. It had practically been a cry for help, after all, and he was all about helping people...

He started to draw a little castle bristling with battlements and surrounded by a moat, and then he added a rope dangling from one wall with a man climbing up it. The man was, somewhat anachronistically, dressed in a three-piece suit.

TBC


	2. Proceed With Caution

_Thanks so much for the reviews – they're much appreciated. This is unfolding more slowly than I had intended, but, as they say, life is a journey, not a destination. I hope you don't mind taking the scenic route._

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Rigsby inspected the food supplies that Jane was packing into Lisbon's car with a proprietary eye. He had every intention of dashing off and getting extra supplies if he thought that Jane had under-estimated their dietary requirements, but it seemed as though Jane had erred on the side of caution. Everything looked pretty promising, actually. Rigsby grinned at Jane and gave him a hand with the packing.

Lisbon appeared just as they had finished putting everything into the car, and she immediately began to unpack it all again. Both Jane and Rigsby spluttered slightly in outrage, but Lisbon paid no attention to them. She had that air about her that women get when they're fixing some mess their inept male counterparts have made, and both men expected her to exclaim, "Men!" at any moment.

"Well, we're certainly not going to starve, are we?" she said instead, eyeing Jane's purchases. "I hope you've got some healthy stuff in among that lot."

"Plenty of fruit and vegetables especially for you, my dear Lisbon," Jane told her cheerfully.

He watched with growing admiration as she repacked the car in about half the space that he and Rigsby had used, and in such a way that nothing delicate got squashed. It was like watching art being created. Cho and Van Pelt arrived and Lisbon slotted in their luggage as though she had had foreknowledge of how much space it would take up. Jane was genuinely impressed.

The rest of the team, apparently taking Lisbon's superpower for granted, climbed into the back of the car, ready to leave. Cho was armed with a book and a bottle of water, Van Pelt was listening to her iPod with a peaceful expression on her face, and Rigsby was checking through the bag of food which he had brought for the car-trip, trying to decide what to eat first.

"You never did give me any entertainment suggestions," Jane said to Lisbon as she closed the trunk of the car, "so I just had to wing it."

Lisbon shrugged. "Jane, one thing I can always rely on you to be is entertaining." She smiled at him before climbing into the driver's seat.

Jane blinked a couple of times, and for a moment wondered if this was going to be easier than he'd thought, but after his brain had re-booted, he remembered that Lisbon was as complicated as she was beautiful, and he realised that a gauntlet had just been thrown down. Lisbon planned on defending her barriers, and had, no doubt, already prepared huge vats of boiling oil to pour over him the moment he got too close.

He climbed somewhat cautiously into the car, his sense of self-preservation warning him that there was a pretty good chance that Lisbon could take him in any type of fight he chose to engage her in. Still, as he glanced sideways at her lovely profile, he decided that being crushed by Lisbon in mortal combat would quite a good way to go. Let the games begin.

The trip passed without incident. Lisbon drove as sedately as always and tried to avoid dwelling on the upcoming battle of wills (_'I can handle Jane,' _she told herself firmly for the umpteenth time). Jane, finding he could glean little from Lisbon's body-language other than that she was tense (which was nothing unusual), gazed out of the window at the passing scenery and planned out the weekend's meals and activities. Cho stayed immersed in his book, which was amusing enough to elicit several chuckles from him. Van Pelt listened to her music and wondered idly what was going on with Jane and Lisbon to prompt such an unlikely event as a holiday together. She was definitely sensing vibes between them. Rigsby ate his snacks and spent the journey happily trying to guess what Van Pelt's swimwear (which she had refused to show him) looked like. He came up with an amazing variety of permutations on the theme.

Jane was right, the beach house was beautiful and, as advertised, right on the beach.

"Wow, it's gorgeous!" Van Pelt said, in delight.

Jane looked pleased, and glanced instinctively at Lisbon to gauge her reaction. She gave him another one of those lovely smiles and said, "Yes, it really is."

Unpacking the car took very little time, and it was only once they had their things scattered about in the open-plan kitchen-lounge area that they explored the rest of the house. It turned out that the six-sleeper consisted of three rooms, two with double beds and one with twin beds. Van Pelt and Rigsby began to fidget in embarrassment, which made Cho suppress a grin. There was a pregnant pause.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Lisbon said irritably. "Obviously Van Pelt and Rigsby will have to take one of the rooms with the double bed, and I'll take the other. I'm sorry, Cho, I'm afraid you'll have to share a room with Jane."

"Hey!" Jane said indignantly.

Cho just shrugged. "Used to it," he said to Lisbon with resignation.

"I could always share with you, Lisbon," Jane suggested. "Then you'd see what a wonderful room-mate I actually am."

Lisbon snorted. "When hell freezes over, Jane."

She took her bag into her room and closed the door firmly in his face before he could articulate the reply which he had already opened his mouth to make.

Thus deprived of his favourite toy, Jane winked at Cho and went off to the kitchen to unpack all his groceries and start preparing dinner. The others changed out of their work clothes and decided to go for a walk along the beach in the twilight. Lisbon suggested that Jane come with them and do the food later, but Jane declined the offer. He didn't often get a chance to cook for other people, and as it was something he really enjoyed doing, he was happy where he was.

It wasn't an especially sandy stretch of beach, though there were pockets of sand here and there among the rocks. The sea was wild and beautiful and not at all hospitable. It didn't look like they'd be doing any swimming, but none of them had really had their hearts set on the idea anyway. Lisbon spotted some seals on the rocks a little way out to sea, and decided to stay and watch them. The others wandered off to explore further along the shore before it got too dark to see their way over the rocks. Lisbon found herself a comfortable spot to sit and continued to watch the seals in the gathering gloom.

'_What is it I really want?'_ The question was still haunting her. She remembered how, as a little girl, she had decided that she was going to be a vet when she grew up. She had stuck with that dream right up until the day her mother died when she was 12, but since then she had seldom dared to dream about anything. It didn't seem worth it. She had stuck with practicalities. She had tailored her life to fit her circumstances. She had done what needed to be done when everyone else had failed to live up to their responsibilities. And now, here she was 25 years later, realising that she was free to do or be anything she wanted, but having no idea what that was anymore.

How frustrating.

She had never told anyone – had barely even admitted it to herself – but she had worked hard all the way through school so that maybe, somehow, by some miracle, she could still someday study to be a vet. It had been no small triumph when she had earned high enough grades to be accepted to study veterinary medicine, even though she hadn't been able to take advantage of her hard-won achievement. The knowledge that she could have done it under different circumstances had somehow helped her to accept without bitterness the difficult realities and responsibilities of her life; the hopefulness of that option was like a beacon of light in the darkness of a life without choices.

She heard the others going back to the house but she didn't move from her rock, even though she was starting to feel very cold indeed.

'_What am I doing here?'_ she thought. _'Me and my stupid inability to back down from a challenge. Especially a challenge from Jane. And I'm sure that's what he was counting on. Our relationship is so convoluted that most of the time I can't work out who is manipulating who, let alone who is winning.' _

She smiled a little. Jane was always so put out at the idea of anyone keeping anything from him. He was easily the most curious, nosey person she had ever met. His pathological need to know everything about everyone was useful when it came to winkling out murderers, but exhausting when you were the object of his curiosity. It wasn't so much that she had secrets to keep; she just wanted to work out the answers to her questions herself, in her own time. She certainly didn't want some insufferably intrusive man figuring out who she was before she did. She didn't like being pressured.

Still, she hadn't been able to resist the idea of watching Jane trying to get Cho to bond with anything other than his book or trying to persuade Rigsby and Van Pelt to bond a bit less with each other and a bit more with the rest of them. If anything, she was the least of his challenges. She had a feeling this was going to be very amusing.

"Lisbon."

Ah, the puppet-master himself.

"Why are you hiding out here by yourself in the dark."

"I'm not hiding, Jane. I like it out here."

"I made some snacks to keep Rigsby going," Jane said, trying a different approach, "and I've kept some aside for you. Don't worry, they're very healthy. So healthy, in fact, that I probably didn't need to take the precaution of hiding them."

Lisbon remembered why she always forgave Jane his many shortcomings. She knew that he knew that she had skipped lunch and would be very hungry by now. It always gave Lisbon a little sweet rush every time someone (usually Jane) looked after her in some way. The role reversal had an exciting, exotic flavour to it.

'_That's something I want!'_ she suddenly realised. _'I want to be looked after.'_ It felt strange to admit that to herself, after having felt all alone in the world for so long, capably looking after not only herself, but everyone around her too. She was tired of having to carry the full load of life's responsibilities on her own. She wanted someone to belong to, someone who would always have her back, someone who could fill the void left by her mother and be her anchor.

'_Not really a role Jane is especially well-suited for.'_ The rueful thought was out before she could snatch it back and lock it securely in the box of thoughts that should never see the light of day.

She sighed and got up to follow Jane back to the house. When she came level with him, he suddenly exclaimed, "Lisbon, you're freezing!"

He seemed annoyed with her as he shrugged off his jacket and put it over her shoulders. She turned towards him, paused, and smiled at him. She knew Jane had no defences against her smile – it was one of his weaknesses.

"Jane, we both know this whole weekend is solely so you can have the fun of trying to shake up all my neatly labelled boxes, in the hopes, I assume, of making me a deeper, finer person, and with the added bonus of giving you a chance to meddle and try to prove that you're right." They looked at each other with a mixture of amusement and respect before she continued, "Please proceed with caution."

Jane gave her one of his rare genuine smiles.

"Don't worry, Lisbon. My plan is entirely lacking in the diabolical. The worst that can happen is that you'll have a good time. And, for the record, my intention is the opposite of making you a deeper, finer person – I'm actually aiming to make you shallower and more selfish, with healthy limits on your tendency to sacrifice yourself for the greater good."

Suddenly they were sharing one of those moments (which they seemed to be having more and more often) where they were completely in sync with each other, as if they'd reached some sub-conscious agreement and it was suddenly them against the world, instead of them against each other.

Then she shivered, and Jane immediately hustled her indoors to get her out of the cold. The moment passed, but the warmth of the connection lingered with Lisbon, and she could see that Jane was affected by it too. This was the real reason why she had agreed to come on this holiday – this indefinable but addictive something that lay between her and Jane. And she was pretty sure it was also the reason that he'd planned the trip in the first place.

'_Proceed with caution, Teresa!'_ she warned herself.

TBC


	3. Not Part of the Plan

Jane had spurned everyone's attempts to help him in the kitchen. Clearly he was having a lot of fun, so the others left him to it. Lisbon took the snacks Jane had made for her and went and had a leisurely bath to warm herself up. Cho stayed buried in his book and Van Pelt and Rigsby watched sports on TV, arguing good-naturedly about the merits of the different players.

The dinner was worth the wait, and Jane lapped up everyone's praise with undisguised pleasure. Naturally he already knew he was a wonderful cook, but it was nice to have everyone else say so too.

After they had put all the dishes in the dishwasher and straightened up the kitchen, Lisbon waited apprehensively to see what Jane was going to try to force them to do for the rest of the evening. Much as he enjoyed keeping her in suspense, Jane decided it was probably safest if he didn't push his luck, so he triumphantly produced a pile of DVDs and told Lisbon to pick which movie they were going to watch.

"A movie, Jane? My, how very original," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

The others looked through the selection Jane had brought and also registered surprise.

"Old black-and-white movies and romantic comedies," Cho said, clearly unimpressed. "Do we look like teenage girls having a slumber party?"

Jane looked at Cho appraisingly and said, "Not even by the wildest stretch of the imagination, Cho. But it can't hurt to broaden your horizons."

Cho gave a grunt that clearly indicated that he didn't agree.

Jane focused his attention back on Lisbon, who was now looking through the movies with what could only be described as astonishment. Jane smiled to himself. He had chosen the movies with great care, and it looked as if he had managed, with his usual unerring insight, to find all her favourites. She glanced up at him and met his gaze for the briefest of moments, but it was enough to make the bottom fall out of Jane's stomach. Suddenly this didn't feel like a game anymore.

Cho had retired to his chair with his book. Why Jane had bothered to bring the rest of them along on this trip was a mystery to him. It was clear the man was trying to woo Lisbon. Not that he objected to a front-row seat to Jane getting squashed like a bug, but he still thought it odd that even a man as obsessed with the limelight as Jane would want an audience for this kind of thing. He mentally shrugged and carried on reading.

"Pick one, Lisbon," Jane said, after Lisbon had examined the whole lot twice.

"Why me?" she asked. "I thought this was a 'no boss and subordinates' trip."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm not asking you to choose because you're the boss," Jane said, though this wasn't entirely true. Picturing a world in which Lisbon was not the one in charge of their little group and, more specifically, of him was a lot harder than he'd anticipated. He had a horrible suspicion that he was whipped.

"Really?" She didn't sound like she believed him. "Okay, then let one of the others choose."

"Lisbon, no-one actually cares which one we watch. Just pick one already, and stop being so difficult, woman!"

Lisbon raised her eyebrows and gave Jane a tiny, crooked smile that clearly said, 'Round 1: Lisbon' - a conclusion that Jane considered a bit premature. The round was by no means over yet.

She then picked up _Notting Hill_ as if nothing had happened and said, "This one."

Van Pelt's face lit up.

"Oh, I _love_ that movie!" she said. "It has Julia Roberts in it," she added for Rigsby's benefit.

Rigsby looked pleased. Julia Roberts was his favourite actress.

"I hope you brought popcorn," he said to Jane.

"Rigsby, we just ate!" Van Pelt chided. "You don't need any more food."

"Gotta have popcorn to watch a movie," Rigsby said obstinately.

Jane grinned and told Rigsby where he could find the microwave popcorn.

The movie was a universal success. Even Cho, to his surprise, found himself drawn in from the beginning. Rigsby realised a few minutes in that he'd actually seen the movie before, but he had no objections to dividing his time between watching Julia Roberts and watching Grace. Two hours well spent, in his opinion. Both Lisbon and Van Pelt loved the movie, so they watched it with unwavering attention from beginning to end.

Jane scarcely watched the movie at all. He initially pretended to, but soon found himself captivated by something much more compelling. He'd never watched TV or a movie with Lisbon before and he hadn't expected the experience to be so engrossing. She was completely oblivious to anything other than the story she was watching, and her emotional responses flitted over her face in the most fascinating, revealing way. Jane was mesmerised, especially when she laughed (which was often). And her expression when she was watching the love scenes made his pulse race and the blood drum in his ears until he felt almost light-headed. Up until that moment, Jane hadn't been prepared to admit to himself how he felt about Lisbon, but it suddenly became so blindingly, overwhelmingly obvious that he could avoid it no longer. He was in love with Teresa Lisbon. And he had no idea what to do about it.

How had his plan to get Lisbon to let her guard down backfired so magnificently on him?

After the movie ended, Lisbon gave a deep sigh of satisfaction and got up to make some tea.

"Admit it, man," Rigsby said to Cho, "You really enjoyed that."

Cho shrugged, "Yeah, it was good. Really funny. Especially Spike." He got up. "I'm going to turn in. Night everyone." He headed off to his room with his book.

Van Pelt and Rigsby took this as their cue to leave centre-stage, and also said good-night. They had thought it would be somewhat awkward, but neither Jane nor Lisbon was paying much attention, so they escaped unscathed.

Jane sat down on one of the barstools on the other side of the kitchen counter and watched Lisbon making the tea.

"Okay, so how do you do that?" she asked him. "That thing with the movies."

"Got all your favourites, didn't I?" Jane said smugly.

"How?"

"It's not that hard. I know you pretty well."

"Oh, please, you do that with total strangers!"

"Actually, no I don't. I can make pretty good guesses as to a stranger's general tastes, because there are surprisingly few variations on the theme. Once you've learned all the variations, it just takes a bit of practise to learn to recognise them. But to correctly guess someone's ten favourite movies, you have to know that person pretty well."

Lisbon gave him his tea and sat down next to him.

"I couldn't guess your ten favourite movies."

"You'd be surprised, Lisbon. Have you actually tried? In all those hundreds of hours we've spent in each other's company, we've picked up massive amounts of information about each other, much of it subconscious. When you intentionally access that information, you'll find that you know all kinds of things you didn't think you knew. Try it."

Lisbon looked suspiciously at Jane. "Maybe another time," she said.

"Nice tea, by the way," Jane grinned at her over the rim of the cup. "Thanks."

They drank their tea in comfortable silence, both of them lost in thoughts too complicated to articulate. Draining her cup, Lisbon got up to go to bed.

"Sweet dreams, Lisbon," Jane said, taking the cups to the sink.

"Yeah, you too, Jane," she replied, before disappearing into the safety of her room.

Cho was still reading when Jane came to bed.

"Closed her door on you again, huh?" he said, smirking at Jane unsympathetically. "She seems a bit impervious to your whole love and affection shtick."

"A, I'm not trying to seduce Lisbon, and B, even if I were, these things take time to fully mature and come to fruition."

"Yeah – in this case years and years and years."

Cho put his book down and turned out the light.

Jane lay on his bed and wondered gloomily how he was going to get himself out of the unexpected hole he suddenly found himself in. Normally he relied on Lisbon to get him out of tricky situations, but since she _was_ the tricky situation in this instance, he was just going to have to fix this himself.

'_I'm a resourceful man,'_ he told himself, _'it'll be fine.'_ But it took him hours to fall asleep, and even when he did, Lisbon invaded his dreams, smiling that disarming smile of hers. This had _not _been a part of the plan.

TBC


	4. Mother of Pearl

_Thanks again for the reviews - it's so nice to get feedback. At some point I somehow switched across to looking at things more from Jane's perspective, but will switch back to Lisbon's perspective in the next chapter._

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Lisbon was generally very disciplined about waking up at a reasonable hour, but she wasn't by nature a morning person, and on this particular morning her discipline failed her and she slept late. When she emerged rather sleepily from her room, she discovered Jane once again in the kitchen, this time cooking a gigantic pile of eggs, bacon and sausages. She had to blink a few times to assure herself that what she was seeing really was Jane dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. It was a surprisingly pleasing sight.

The doors and windows at the front of the house were all open to the sun and the fresh breezes, and the combined smell of the food and the salty sea air was intoxicating. It was a clear, beautiful day and the sea was sparkling.

"The casual look suits you," Lisbon said.

Jane looked up and grinned. "Hey, sleepyhead," he said. Registering that she was also wearing shorts, he added appreciatively, "It suits you too."

Repressing a blush at his tone, she asked, "Where is everyone?"

"Rigsby and Van Pelt went for a run – they've been gone a while, so I'm sure they'll be back any minute. Cho's gone for a walk on the beach."

"You made Rigsby wait till I woke up before he could have breakfast?" It wasn't really a question. "That was rather cruel. He's probably gone looking for the nearest alternative food source."

"That would be a long run," Jane said. "And I'm making up for it now."

Rigsby and Van Pelt returned, sweaty and panting, and both looked incredibly relieved to see Lisbon awake and breakfast almost ready. They showered and changed with truly impressive speed, and emerged just as Cho returned, lured by the tantalising smell of bacon.

"I think you missed your calling, Jane," Rigsby said, as he worked his way through his second large helping.

"Well it's always a pleasure to cook for such a willing eater," Jane responded with a grin. "It's nice to know that nothing will go to waste."

Everyone ate rather more than they usually did, and even Rigsby was hard pressed to make sure that nothing went to waste. There was a satiated hush for a while after the meal as they all sipped contentedly at their teas and coffees and enjoyed the magnificent view.

"So," Jane said when he'd finished his tea, "About today..."

Before he could continue, Van Pelt broke in.

"On our run, Rigsby and I saw a really nice swimming beach a few miles up the coast. We were thinking of walking there and spending the day on the beach, if anyone's interested?"

"You can take the car if you want," Lisbon said. "I don't think we'll be needing it, and we can always phone you if something comes up."

"Thanks, Boss," Van Pelt said. "You don't want to come?"

"No, thanks. I'm going to spend a quiet day doing as little as possible. What about you two?" Lisbon looked at Cho and Jane.

Cho also declined the offer to go swimming. He already had the perfect spot on the beach all picked out and he planned to spend the day soaking up the sun and reading. Although he didn't say so, it was clear that the fewer people he had in his space, the happier he'd be.

Jane was wearing the expression of a man whose thunder has been stolen, and although Lisbon felt a tiny bit sorry for him, she mostly found it pretty funny. She wondered what he'd been wanting them all to do.

"Jane?" she asked, quirking her eyebrows at him.

Jane could tell that Lisbon was laughing at him not very far below the surface.

"No thanks, Grace. You guys go ahead," he said, avoiding Lisbon's eye.

After the two had left, Cho gathered up his things to go and claim his spot on the beach.

"What about sun-cream, Cho?" Lisbon said as he was on his way out the door.

"Doesn't that defeat the object?" he asked, pausing on the step.

"That depends. Is your object skin cancer?" Lisbon gave him a pointed look and held out a bottle of sun-cream. Cho sighed, took the bottle and hurried off before she could make him do something else he didn't want to do.

Jane, who was sprawled comfortably on the couch, watched this exchange with interest.

"You can't help yourself, can you Mother Teresa?" he commented.

Lisbon threw herself into one of the armchairs.

"When you become a mother at age 12, it becomes almost impossible to switch it off again," she said.

Well, that was unexpected. Lisbon almost never voluntarily mentioned her childhood. Jane sat up a little and looked at her expectantly.

"What?" she said.

Apparently that was it. Jane was disappointed.

"So, I take it this was not what you had planned for today." Lisbon looked at him mischievously.

Jane shrugged. "Could be worse. You're still here and I have you all to myself." He cocked his head on one side and gave her a mock glare. "You knew this would happen, didn't you?" It was a world gone mad when Lisbon was the one with all the insight and foreknowledge, and he was the one left looking like an idiot. He'd been so focused on his plan that he'd overlooked some rather obvious roadblocks and landmines.

Lisbon smiled serenely.

"Rigsby and Van Pelt are in love. The honeymoon phase of a relationship is really not the best time to get people to expand their friendship pool. And Cho likes the restful silence of his own company best, so you were never going to have much luck there. You know, this just proves the point that you really don't ever think your supposedly cunning plans through properly."

"My plans are all about results, Lisbon. They may not unfold quite as I think they're going to, but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Let's just wait and see, shall we?"

Lisbon just laughed. There were few things that gave her quite as much pleasure as a discomforted Jane.

"Shall we go and see if the seal family is back?" she suggested, since Jane was evidently not going to tell her what his foiled plan had been.

Jane bounced off the couch.

"Yeah, let's explore the beach a bit, shall we? No point in staying holed up inside on a beautiful day like this."

They didn't spot any seals, but the walk was no less enjoyable for that fact. Kindly deciding not to disturb Cho in his comfortable, lonely spot a little way down the beach, they walked instead in the other direction, often stopping to paddle in the waves or to examine the teeming wildlife in the many rock-pools. They also became somewhat addicted to looking for beautiful shells after they unexpectedly found a particularly exquisite mother of pearl. Watching Lisbon splashing in the waves like a kid, Jane suddenly asked, "Why did you become a cop, Lisbon?"

The shutters came down immediately, dousing the carefree sparkle in her eyes. Jane instantly regretted the question. To his surprise, though, she answered him.

"I needed to be able to support my family and it was a decent job that I could get right out of High School. I knew if I was a cop there was a much better chance they'd give me custody of my brothers."

"You sued your father for custody of your brothers?" Jane was genuinely surprised.

"No, he killed himself before I had the chance. In his will he appointed me as their guardian." Lisbon's eyes were dark with pain.

"You can't blame yourself, Lisbon," Jane said, reaching out to take her hand, but she stepped away out of his reach.

"That's the pot calling the kettle black," she said, in a rather faraway voice.

Jane thought it best to steer the conversation in a different direction.

"So when did you get your college degree?"

"I studied through correspondence. Took a few years longer than a full-time degree, but I got it in the end."

"So you became a cop by default and then you stayed a cop even after your brothers grew up because you found you were good at it and were already successfully working your way up the chain of command. I suppose it didn't seem worthwhile to change careers after you'd put so much time and effort into the one you already had."

Lisbon didn't answer.

"What would you have been if you'd had the choice? Because it's never too late, you know."

"Trying to get rid of me?" she said, turning away and starting to walk back towards the house. "Let's go and have lunch, Jane."

Normally Jane considered getting the information he wanted out of people worth almost any price, but he definitely wasn't feeling that way now. The fun, carefree Lisbon that he'd caught a brief glimpse of earlier that day had disappeared completely and been replaced by a quiet, unresponsive, sparkle-less Lisbon, and Jane could have kicked himself for being the cause.

After lunch, Lisbon curled up in a chair on the veranda with a book and declined to be disturbed by Jane. After a while Jane gave up and took up his customary position dozing on the couch. He made sure that Lisbon was in his line of sight, however, and spent most of the time watching her and wondering how to fix the situation.

In the end, he found he didn't need to. Left alone to recover her poise, Lisbon revived like a wilted flower in the cool of the evening. By the time Van Pelt and Rigsby returned, sunburnt and happy, and Cho came inside to cool off and get a beer, she was once again cheerfully in possession of her resilient sense of humour.

Relieved, Jane got up to start dinner. The others sat a few feet away from him on the veranda, so he was able to join in on the conversation through the open doors.

From the sound of it, Van Pelt and Rigsby had had a very energetic day, swimming, snorkelling, and playing beach volleyball and football with some fellow holidaymakers. The others felt tired just hearing about it.

"What did you and Jane do?" Van Pelt asked Lisbon.

"We went for a walk, and then I read and Jane did what he always does."

"Well, you look too relaxed for him to have spent the afternoon annoying you, so I assume he slept on the couch?" Cho said, and they all chuckled when Lisbon nodded.

"Show them the shells we found," Jane said. He didn't like it when they all ganged up on him.

Lisbon rather shyly showed the others their collection. Van Pelt was so delighted with them that Rigsby decided that he was going to have to find some shell jewellery to buy her and he watched her carefully to see which ones she liked best. Cho was rather taken with the mother of pearl and kept moving it in the light to see the different colours.

"Anyone know what makes it do that?" he asked.

Jane did, of course. "It's made of lots of semi-transparent layers which make the different wavelengths of light interfere with each other so they end up reflecting different colours at different angles." (_'Like Lisbon,'_ he thought to himself.)

"How do you know stuff like that?" Rigsby asked.

Jane shrugged. "When you don't have to waste years in school, it leaves so much more time to learn things that are actually interesting." He grinned. "Like how to cook, for instance."

"Ugh, I don't find cooking interesting. I find it extremely tedious," Lisbon said.

"That's probably because you associate it with stress and loss of childhood," Jane said, before he could stop himself.

"No, I think I'm just one of those people who doesn't like cooking," Lisbon said, apparently not taking offense. "I didn't like it even when I was a little kid. I quite like washing up, though. And, Jane, please spare me whatever personality analysis you're busy extrapolating from that fact."

"How well you know me, Lisbon," Jane said, grinning.

Jane joined the others outside as the sun started to dip over the sea, turning the horizon a wonderful shade of orange.

"This is such a lovely holiday," Van Pelt said, smiling at Jane. "Thank you so much for inviting us, Jane."

Jane felt a little humbled by her honest pleasure. Lisbon reached out and touched his arm briefly.

"Yes, this place is beautiful, Jane. We appreciate all the trouble you've gone to."

Jane knew that Lisbon was saying that she was sorry about what had happened earlier, and a familiar rush of guilt swept through him. Lisbon always took responsibility for things, even when they weren't her fault (which they hardly ever were). Since he never took responsibility for anything if he could avoid it, that meant she had a lot of slack to pick up. It was the principal reason why the burden of debt he owed her had grown so massive that he would never be able to repay it.

He gave Lisbon one of his rare unguarded looks, and she seemed to understand, because she gave him a sweet, private little smile that immediately stilled the storm inside him.

He wished he knew how to return the favour. He had a feeling she needed it just as much as he did.

TBC


	5. A Slippery Slope

_Well, this is the penultimate chapter._

* * *

After Jane had pried into a part of her life that she didn't like to even think about, let alone talk about (_especially_ with Jane), Lisbon had done what she always did in such situations – she had shut herself down like an overheated engine. Denial was her principal way of dealing with the whole section of her life between the ages of 12 and 21. She didn't want to have to think about it ever again – wasn't it bad enough that she had had to live through it?

She knew it was supposed to be unhealthy to bottle things up, but she had no interest in rehashing old issues and reopening old wounds. If other people (i.e. Jane) wanted to get to know her so badly, they'd just have to make do with her present self. What was the point in digging around into the whys and wherefores – this was who she was now, and if other people didn't like it, that was their problem.

It had taken her a couple of hours to calm down again, whereupon her sense of perspective reasserted herself and she felt a little silly for having over-reacted. This was Jane, after all – what did she expect? He was nosy about everyone, and, if she was perfectly truthful with herself, she had to admit that she would be somewhat hurt if he didn't show any interest in her hidden self. It was a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation.

Later that afternoon, she managed to apologise to him without actually apologising, and Jane, being Jane, understood. He gave her one of his haunted looks to apologise in his turn, and she had to repress the urge to gather him into her arms and comfort him like he was a little boy with a scraped knee. His pain always left her feeling utterly helpless, which in turn made her angry.

'_That's something I definitely want,'_ she thought, frustrated and a little bitter, _'I want to make his pain go away. I want him to be healed.'_

Why did the things that she wanted always have to be so impossible? She knew, but didn't want to acknowledge, that Jane was almost certainly damaged beyond repair.

Dinner was pleasant, if a little subdued. At one point Cho made a comment about a case that they had recently solved, and after that Lisbon seemed to tune them all out, eating her meal with a contemplative expression on her face. The team automatically assumed that she was thinking about work, and rather fervently hoped that she wasn't going to make them think about it too. They were enjoying their brief break from murder and mayhem. Jane was fairly certain that the conundrum Lisbon was turning over in her mind was completely personal, so he was immeasurably relieved when her face lightened and a calm peacefulness seemed to settle over her like a shroud.

Jane had by this time officially shelved all of his more outrageous ideas for the weekend, having decided that while it would technically be possible for him to manipulate everyone into doing what he wanted (being a man of formidable gifts), it wasn't worth the trouble. His mind was on other things now. Lisbon (quite without her knowledge) had completely distracted him. A man in love cannot be expected to think straight, after all.

He had brought a few board games strictly as backup entertainment, but he thought now that it might be a rather amusing way to learn more about his companions. Not wanting Lisbon to realise that he had admitted defeat and largely abandoned his original reasons for the trip, he said he thought the ladies should play against the men.

"Play what?" Cho asked suspiciously.

Jane beamed and produced Pictionary.

Cho made a face. "I'm not really a Pictionary kind of guy," he said.

Rigsby grinned gleefully at Cho and said, "Pay up."

"I was sure you were going to suggest a game of strip poker," Cho explained to Jane as he gave Rigsby his money.

It had actually occurred to Jane, rather wistfully, that strip poker would be the perfect way to learn more about his companions (i.e. Lisbon), but he had known better than to suggest it.

"Like any one of us would be crazy enough to play any form of poker with Mr Memory Palace," Rigsby scoffed.

"He's probably just as good at Pictionary," Van Pelt said gloomily, "otherwise he wouldn't have suggested it."

"Don't worry, Van Pelt," Lisbon said, "I'm pretty good at Pictionary myself."

Van Pelt flushed, embarrassed to have inadvertently slighted her boss.

"Sorry, Boss, I didn't mean..." she began, but Lisbon waved her apology off.

"That sounded distinctly like a challenge, Agent Lisbon," Jane said, suddenly warming to the idea of playing against Lisbon. He would have much preferred to be her partner, but he was a man with appearances to keep up. It wouldn't do to let Lisbon think she had the upper hand.

Both Rigsby and Van Pelt were also quite good at the game, but Van Pelt was hampered by the fact that playing with Lisbon made her nervous, and Rigsby was hampered by the fact that Jane insisted on being too clever for his own good. Cho was, as he had said, not a Pictionary kind of guy. Having him as their third player, instead of giving the men an advantage, was turning out to be something of a handicap.

It quickly became apparent that no-one was having much fun. Van Pelt was so desperate to please Lisbon and so apologetic about any failure on her part that neither of them was able to just enjoy the game - despite the fact that they were winning easily. Lisbon soon started glowering at Jane for putting them all in this rather tiresome situation, and he knew it was just a matter of time before she said something.

Rigsby and Cho were finding Jane's clever but obscure drawings almost impossible to decipher, and Cho's drawings, aside from producing much hilarity (mainly from the women, who didn't have to try to guess what he was drawing), defeated even Jane's interpretative skills.

"You can't just draw a circle with four sticks coming out of it and then expect us to guess every four-legged animal on the planet," Rigsby said, frustrated.

"Actually, it's an ant," Cho said. Looked like an ant to him.

"Ants have six legs and three body parts," Jane pointed out.

Cho shrugged. "Whatever," he said. "I thought you were supposed to be so great at thinking outside the box."

"When I only have a minute to figure something out, a few clues would be helpful," Jane said, a little stung by this unreasonable and uncalled for slur on his giftedness. "Despite what Van Pelt believes, I am not actually able to read minds."

Fortunately for them all, Lisbon was a woman with laughably small stores of patience, and it wasn't long before she had had enough.

"I think if we're going to carry on playing, we need to shuffle the teams around and start again. Jane, you and Van Pelt swap places. Cho, you're off the hook if you don't want to play any more; otherwise you can pick which team you want to be on."

"I'll just watch," Cho said, throwing Lisbon a grateful look. Lisbon always had his back.

Van Pelt and Rigsby cheered up considerably at the idea of being on the same team. Jane, though he didn't show it, was equally pleased with the new arrangement. Good old Lisbon. He could always count on her to do the right thing. He settled down beside her in a proprietary sort of way.

"We're going to crush them," he said. "Shouldn't we be giving them a head start or something?"

"Pride comes before a fall," Lisbon told him severely, but she also secretly thought that their opponents were in for a drubbing. She took the precaution of forbidding Jane to throw the dice. She wasn't sure how, but she knew he manipulated them to his advantage somehow.

Van Pelt and Rigsby actually made a good team, although Van Pelt's competitive spirit did result in a couple of heated arguments which she would abruptly end when she remembered whose company they were in. They were, however, no match for the Jane-Lisbon Pictionary Whiz Team.

Lisbon was so good at interpreting Jane's drawings that he started drawing little joke drawings for her first and then saying, "Correct! But now I need to draw what's actually on the card." The first couple of times he did that, Lisbon got exasperated...

"Jane, stop fooling around! We're going to run out of time if you keep doing that!"

"Relax, Lisbon. I'm just giving Grace and Wayne here a fighting chance."

"Arrogance in not an attractive trait, Jane."

"Actually this is more of a homage to your swift and accurate deductive skills, Lisbon. We've already seen that no matter how brilliant an artist is, some people" he scowled in Cho and Rigsby's direction "still completely misinterpret his work."

...but after a while she got drawn in and soon she and Jane were drawing each other amusing messages to entertain themselves while Rigsby and Van Pelt were taking their turn. They were having so much fun that they didn't even notice Cho watching them with a quizzical expression. He couldn't remember ever seeing Lisbon laughing like that before.

Jane and Lisbon were too good at the game for it to last very long. They won in record time, even with Lisbon throwing the dice. Lisbon was so cheerful that Jane was seriously reconsidering suggesting a quick game of strip poker, but he was distracted by the fact that Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt had retreated to the kitchen for what looked to him like a war council.

"Is it just me," Van Pelt was saying, "or is there something going on between Jane and Lisbon?"

"It's just you," Rigsby said, examining the leftovers in the fridge.

"Something's going on," Cho said, getting himself some water to counteract the beers he'd had.

"Nah, they just like winning. Even more than Van Pelt, if such a thing is possible."

Van Pelt gave Rigsby a mock-punch and said, "Hey!"

"Did you see how bent out of shape Jane got when we were making him lose against Lisbon? I thought steam was going to start coming out of his ears. Jane and Lisbon, no matter how much they irritate each other, always want to be on the same team because when they are, they tend to win. And they both like winning more than anything. That's all it is."

Cho and Van Pelt looked at Rigsby with new respect, but were nevertheless unconvinced by his argument. Before they could pursue the subject, however, Lisbon interrupted them to come and put the kettle on. The three of them scattered somewhat guiltily, but Lisbon had her mind on other things and didn't notice. Jane, on the other hand, both noticed and correctly surmised that the team had been discussing him and Lisbon.

While Lisbon was waiting for the kettle to boil she slipped outside to admire the silvery glow of the gibbous moon on the water. Jane grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair and swiftly followed her.

"You're going to get cold again," he scolded, putting the coat over her shoulders.

"I wasn't planning on being out here long enough for that," she said, throwing him a smile that dazzled him with its intensity.

For a few moments they admired the view in easy silence, then Lisbon suddenly said, "I want to thank you, Jane."

Surprised, Jane queried, "For?"

"You got me thinking, and I've come to a couple of important realisations." She paused to order her thoughts, then continued, still gazing over the water as she spoke. "I've always known that I liked being a cop, but I was also a little bit resentful because I felt as though I'd been cheated out of something better. At the back of my mind, I had this dissatisfying sense of being trapped. But I realised today that I _love_ what I do – not just because I'm successful at it, but because I actually think that this is my calling, if that doesn't sound too pretentious. I find it genuinely fulfilling. So instead of looking at how I became a cop as being a moment when something was taken away from me, I'm thinking now that maybe it was a gift instead. I should be classic X-generation – confused, alienated, unable to decide where I belong – but I got lucky. Somehow I landed where I belong right in the beginning, without having to make lots of expensive and probably unfulfilling mistakes along the way." She chewed her lip thoughtfully and fell silent.

"Well, I must say, I'm glad you're not going to run out on us any time soon, Lisbon. But there must be other things you want besides work satisfaction?"

"Yeah, I do miss my brothers. It would be nice to have some family around."

"You could always start your own family," Jane said, somewhat cautiously.

"Get married, you mean?" Lisbon made this sound like a foreign concept. "I suppose so, but I'm not really all that keen on the idea of being in love. The companionship would be kind of nice, though."

"You really can't bear the thought of losing control, can you? Even to fall in love."

"And you can?"

"I don't think falling in love is something you necessarily have a lot of choice about – hence the term 'falling'."

"Well, then, I'll just have to cross that bridge when – or if – I come to it, won't I?"

"Do you think about having kids?"

Lisbon shrugged. "I only got the last lot off my hands a few years ago. And now I have you around to do a very convincing imitation of a small child, so I think I'm already all set in that department."

Jane grinned and said, "What was the other important realisation? You said you'd had a couple, and by my count you only told me one."

Lisbon shot him an amused look.

"Nothing gets by you, does it?" she said teasingly. She cocked her head a little to the side. "The other one was that you win, Jane."

"Huh?" he said, startled. Those were not words he had come to expect from Lisbon.

"I realised that you are not just my colleague, but also my friend. So you win, okay?" She suddenly seemed very shy and uncertain. This sort of thing was well outside her comfort zone.

A delighted grin spread across Jane's face. Subsequent events had so overtaken him that he had almost forgotten that that had been his original plan for the weekend. He was relieved that Lisbon clearly didn't know how far he'd moved the goalposts since then, because he still didn't know what he wanted to do about that. This was an excellent start, though.

"See, the proof _is_ in the pudding," he said cockily.

"A most annoying and tiresome friend," Lisbon added.

Jane backtracked a little. "Well, technically I didn't win very convincingly – only a 25% success rate. It seems that Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt are determined to remain firmly in the colleague camp."

Lisbon shrugged. "That's the way we all want it to be. We're happy with our relationships the way they are. You know, you're far too quick to meddle with things you shouldn't, Jane."

"It's part of my charm," Jane said.

"Hmm," Lisbon said, with a dampening lack of enthusiasm, "I think it's time for tea."

She turned to go inside, but Jane caught her arm and said quickly, "Lisbon, you know you can always count on me, right? Like family."

"Always?" she said, the question loaded with all their unspoken baggage.

"Well, nobody's perfect, of course." He was half joking, half deadly serious.

She looked at him, her eyes dark pools of unarticulated thoughts and fears. "I know," she said, and she wasn't referring to the glaringly obvious fact that Jane wasn't perfect. Satisfied, he let go of her arm. She returned his jacket to him and they went inside.

That night, Jane lay in bed and thought about how surprising he often found Lisbon. One minute she was all prickles and irritation, and the next she'd be slow-dancing in his arms with her head on his shoulder, or telling him that he was her friend. When she did something like that, his ability to think became severely compromised and he found it very hard to stop smiling. If he didn't believe it to be impossible, he'd almost think he was happy.

Lisbon lay in bed and turned over the events of the day in her head. She should have been more irritated that Jane had succeeded in getting to her, but instead she felt uncomplicatedly happy. She suspected that she had just stepped out onto the top of a very slippery slope, and that Jane had plenty more tricks up his sleeve, but she found to her surprise that she didn't really want to fight it any more. Besides, if she had read his expression correctly, she was pretty sure she was getting to him just as much as he was getting to her. It was a comforting thought.

TBC


	6. Breaching the Walls

_Well, this is it. Thank you for the reviews, especially those who kindly reviewed several or all of the chapters. This is the first (intentional) multi-chapter fic I've written, and it's immensely encouraging to know that people are reading and enjoying the story as you're writing it._

_Happy Mentalist viewing, and I wish you all many magical Jane/Lisbon moments!_

_

* * *

_

They all eased very slowly into their Sunday, as though making any sudden moves might frighten the rest of their holiday away. Breakfast was a leisurely affair, without a great deal of conversation. Everyone was busy trying to imprint the beauty of the day on their minds so that they would be able to call it up at will and repeatedly savour the pleasantness of the whole experience – the tangy smell of the sea, the fluffy clouds scudding across an impossibly blue sky, the sunlight dancing on the restless water, the good food, and the complete absence of any corpses.

Lisbon received a call from one of her brothers, and retreated outside to enjoy her conversation in privacy. Through the open doors, the others could see her evident pleasure at talking to her family members, all of whom (right down to the baby) were apparently taking it in turns to come on the line, if the changes in the pitch of her voice were anything to go by. Jane felt almost jealous of those unseen people who won so effortlessly from Lisbon the type of affection and intimacy that he was craving from her.

After breakfast Jane disappeared into his room and began rooting about in his luggage. He triumphantly re-emerged carrying some children's fishing nets and several plastic buckets and spades in various shapes, sizes and garish colours. How he had fitted them all into his bag was a bit of a Mary Poppins mystery.

"Let's build a sandcastle," he said, with such an eager, hopeful expression that not even Cho had the heart to throw cold water on his plan. They followed him somewhat unenthusiastically to a sandy section of beach that he'd been eyeing all weekend for this very purpose.

"Perfect," he said with satisfaction, and distributed the buckets and spades.

At first everybody helped fairly willingly, but once the initial structure was in place, the others started to realise that Jane was not, in fact, building a sandcastle, but was instead intent on creating a sand sculpture.

At this point Cho and Rigsby lost interest and instead set off with the fishing nets to see if they could catch anything with them. Judging by the yelling and splashing, they were putting all their energy into the effort, but the best they could manage was a few tiny fish which they immediately threw back. Rigsby also made the strategic error of standing on a crab, which nipped him viciously on the toe in response, so he was a bit woebegone when he later returned to the balm of Van Pelt's sympathetic company. Cho had just laughed at him.

"It's lucky we're not relying on you two for our lunch," Lisbon remarked dryly when they returned wet and empty-handed.

She too had abandoned the Great Sandcastle Construction Effort, leaving it in Jane and Van Pelt's capable hands. Instead she went in search of driftwood to make a drawbridge with and seaweed, pebbles and shells for various decorative and utilitarian purposes. Returning with her collection, she began to decorate the castle with the faraway look of someone who is hovering somewhere between her adult self and the dreamy little child she once was. Jane suspected that the little kid version had the upper hand.

Once the castle was complete, Van Pelt fetched her phone so that she could immortalise their work of art on camera. It was a truly impressive structure, all medieval towers and battlements and parapets.

"You never do anything the normal way, do you?" Lisbon said to Jane, but there was no malice in her tone. If anything, it rather sounded as though she liked that about him.

Jane smiled at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "That would be boring, Lisbon," he replied.

After a late lunch, they packed up reluctantly and set off back home.

Apart from the low-key murmur of Van Pelt and Rigsby chatting in the backseat and Jane's occasional comments about the scenery, the drive back was quiet. Jane compared Lisbon's current relaxed demeanour with the tenseness she had displayed on the drive there two days earlier and felt rather proud of himself.

Yes, he admitted at last, that strange unfamiliar feeling that he was experiencing was indeed happiness.

Back at the CBI, Van Pelt, Rigsby and Cho transferred their possessions to their own cars, sincerely thanked Jane once again, and then went their separate ways.

Lisbon and Jane both felt a strange unwillingness to do the same.

"We should do that again sometime," Jane said. "Soon."

Lisbon smiled at him, but didn't commit herself either way.

"And next time we can dispense with the company of Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt, since they insist on remaining merely our colleagues," he twinkled mischievously at her.

Had Jane just asked her to go on holiday alone with him? Lisbon's eyes widened slightly in surprise. This wasn't what she'd meant when she'd said they were friends. Well, not officially, anyway.

"But then we'd have no-one to beat at Pictionary," she said as lightly as she could.

"I'm sure we could find other ways to entertain ourselves," Jane said, and this time Lisbon's heart-rate definitely sped up. What was the annoying man up to now? Give him an inch and he took a mile. He was like a colonising parasite – he would start by taking up residence in her heart and mind, and end up taking over her whole life, mind, body and soul.

Jane, slightly lost in Lisbon's eyes as her mind drifted tantalisingly over the thought of him colonising her body, lifted his hand and gently brushed her cheek with his fingers. The action was entirely unpremeditated, but as soon as he made contact with her soft skin, a shock seemed to race through his system, making him hurriedly drop his hand and step backwards in confusion.

Lisbon, surprised by his evident uncertainty, reached out and touched his hand briefly with her own.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Jane," she said, and as they smiled at each other they shared another one of their magical moments of connection.

Lisbon climbed reluctantly into her car, but before she could start the engine, Jane suddenly said, "Lisbon! Wait!"

He hurried over to where his luggage was and pulled out the packet with the DVDs in it. Handing it to her through her window, he said, "These aren't rentals; I bought them. For you."

Jane was wearing that same eager, expectant grin that he'd worn when he'd given her the emeralds and the pony, and Lisbon felt the now familiar rush of sweetness go through her as she took the bag from him.

"I figured you probably just watch these movies when they happen to come on TV or occasionally rent a pile of them for a movie marathon, but that you wouldn't have ever gone to the time and trouble to buy them for yourself. And since you won't spoil yourself, I decided someone else should do it for you." He paused for a moment, and then went on recklessly. "Now that we're officially friends, there isn't anything to prevent us from spending our free time together with a clear conscience – the conscience, in this scenario, obviously being yours," he grinned at her cheekily, "so maybe I could come over and watch these with you some time?"

"I'd like that," Lisbon said, suddenly experiencing a strange giddy feeling, as though she was in free-fall. She gave her head a tiny shake to try to restore her equilibrium. "Thank you, Jane."

"Oh, and may I commend you on your truly impressive personal growth, Lisbon. You're coming along in leaps and bounds!" Jane had never been very good at knowing when to shut up.

Lisbon gave a little growl and started her car, but Jane saw the corners of her mouth twitching as she said, "Goodbye, Jane!" and drove away.

Later that afternoon when Jane was unpacking his things, he came across the list he'd made before the trip with his drawing of the castle and the man climbing the walls. He realised that the castle that he'd built on the beach that morning was very like the one in his drawing. After a bit of thought, he carefully erased the man, and redrew him standing triumphantly on the top of the battlements. The rope he'd climbed to get there was gone, so there was no turning back. Now that he was on the right side of the wall, what was he supposed to do next?

Jane wasn't sure, but he intended to find out.

THE END

* * *

_Well, I couldn't have Jane at the beach and not let him build one of his famous castles, now could I? That would be a waste._

_Thanks for reading._


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